THE QUERY PROJECT - European Commission - Europa

values. Point values are harmonised with the attorney’s price list.
Currently, the fee for providing an expert opinion for a civil or
criminal procedure is between EUR 400.0 and 800.0.
working fields
Road accident analysis is a specialised area which falls under
the area “transport”. Court experts analyse the course of a road
accident in all its phases and determine biomechanical load on
the passengers at the time of the impact.
Associations, institutions and activities
Court experts for road accident analysis are organised under the
Association of Court Experts for Accident Research and Analysis
of the Republic of Slovenia, which is a member of EVU (European
Association for Accident Research and Analysis). Court experts
attend regular seminars organised by the Association and the
Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Slovenia. Whenever possible,
they also attend annual EVU congresses and Global Safety conferences.
Information on the development of the area of expertise
can be obtained from the relevant scientific and professional
magazines and from research projects as well as graduate theses
and doctoral dissertations prepared through the University of
Ljubljana and Road Safety Institutes.
Spain
Juan Luis de Miguel
jl.demiguel@centro-zaragoza.com
Co u n t R y R E P o R t S
Qualification
Currently, despite some efforts made in recent years, there is
no official certification for accident reconstruction in Spain. Thus
we can find a very heterogeneous group of professionals acting
as expert witnesses in traffic accident matters. They stem from
fields like engineering, automobile expertise, police, or even
criminology.
The real thing is that, in fact, most of the accident reconstruction
experts have a university degree in mechanical engineering,
but there is no prerequisite at all for this specific job. Therefore it’s
just the customer who decides which reconstructionist to hire,
and finally it is the judge, who appraise the expert reports and
their depositions on the trial, the one that decides the value of a
certain expert testimony.
Legal references about experts’ qualification can be found in
the Criminal and Civil procedure laws, as well as in the Law for
managing and superintending the private insurances. All of them
set similar requirements: “experts must have a degree in the subject
they are reporting about, if there are official degrees that regulate
those professional careers,….”
To my opinion, here lies the main obstacle for an effective
professional regulation of the accident reconstruction matter:
there is no official degree in accident reconstruction at Spanish
universities. Of course, there are hundreds of “diplomas” from
private institutions and universities, which differ strongly in
the prerequisites for their pupils to be accepted, and also in the
extension of the courses: from 18 to 300 hours. But an official
degree, like lawyer, physician, engineer, doesn’t exist for accident
reconstructionists.
Certification
In order to assure the appropriate level of qualification that law
still has not settled clearly for most of the expertness specialities,
like the accident reconstructionist, representative organizations
from the insurance sector and the professional association of
insurance experts tried to take the necessary actions. With this aim
they collectively established the basic requirements for training
programmes and ways and means to put them in practice.
While writing this presentation, the Insurance General
Directorate is on the way for approving the basic requirements
for training courses, developed by the association of experts, acting
in the fields of automobiles and homes. But still is not decided
for accident reconstructionists, although the programme was
concluded some years ago. The proposal required to be previously
certified as an automobile expert, plus a university degree
in engineering, to be accepted in the training courses. It takes
about 6 years to get a university degree in “superior” engineering
and about 3 years to get a degree in “technical” engineering.
Both are accepted.
Position in court
In the overwhelming majority of cases, the reconstructionist is
hired by one of the litigant parties, not by the court. Therefore is
very often to find two or more experts in the trial.
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